3-Cushion
LAUSANNE - Who doesn’t remember Marco Zanetti’s heroic victory in the best year of his career, when he also won the Lausanne Billard Masters in the final against his former Agipi leader Frédéric Caudron? It was the apotheosis of the first edition of the tournament, organized by CEB’s board member Diane Wild and developed into a high-class event under her supervision.
Diane Wild (from Lausanne) promised then that there would be a second edition. And indeed… the Lausanne Billard Masters in the Montbenon Casino in Lausanne has returned to the international calendar, even in a slightly bigger design. Ten players, divided into two groups, are fighting for the final victory on Friday 21, Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 November.
Five players from the top ten in the world: Frédéric Caudron, the world champion, Marco Zanetti, the title holder, Dick Jaspers, Torbjörn Blomdahl and the Korean Sung-Won Choi. The competition comes mainly from other players with a huge reputation: Dani Sánchez, Jérémy Bury and Martin Horn.
The field is completed by two Swiss players, who are selected from the national rankings and played a tournament in September for two places in the Billard Masters. René Hendriksen and Fernando Couto were the winners.
The group format is:
Group A: Marco Zanetti, Dick Jaspers, Sung-Won Choi, Martin Horn, Rene Hendriksen.
Group B: Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez, Jérémy Bury, Fernando Couto.
Kozoom had an interview with Diane Wild about the preparation of the tournament and the ambitions of the organization.
Frits Bakker Kozoom: The formula of the Lausanne Billard Masters, with six players from the top of the world, was a big success last year. The main change for this year is that the field is expanded with two world class players.
Diane Wild: ,,Therefore we had to raise the budget, but it was our ambition to play with ten instead of eight players. And we are also very happy that we have a famous Korean player, Sung-Won Choi, in our tournament this year.’’
FB/Kozoom: How difficult was it to conclude the package for this second edition?
DW: ,,The main difficulty in our organization is to find the sponsors for our budget. Two more players means a larger budget for travel, food, hotel expenses and prize money. We have only space for two billiards in the room, so ten players is the maximum if we want to play our tournament in three days.’’
FB/Kozoom: Are the sponsors of the tournament about the same as last year?
DW: ,,Yes, the same sponsors... and we work together with a newspaper now, that will circulate 30.000 programs two weeks before the tournament. But unfortunately, we couldn’t find major sponsor, so we have to deal with a lot of little ones. That is the challenge for the coming years: find a major sponsor, so that we can continue the tournament.’’
FB/Kozoom: The most important is to attract many people and a lot of publicity.
DW: ,,I hope we will attract a lot of spectators, indeed, then it will be more easy to find sponsors. Billiards is totally unknown in Switzerland, therefore it is so difficult to find enthusiastic sponsors. We are trying to promote our sport with this tournament. The city of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud help us with that… but you can’t change it all in one edition.’’
FB/Kozoom: Will the Lausanne Billard Masters be able to grow to the level of the Agipi Masters?
DW: ,,I don’t want to compare. The main goal is that we try to make a nice tournament with the best players and to make promotion for billiards in Switzerland. And basically, not only I..., everyone in our sport is very sad that Agipi has stopped.’’
FB/Kozoom: Who are involved with your organization?
DW: ,,The organization is composed by players from the Lausanne Billard club. We are lucky that there are many volunteers in Lausanne who want to help us. But in fact, I'm involved from A to Z in the entire organization, with the significant help of my committee.’’
FB/Kozoom: What were total costs of the tournament last year? And how many spectators were there over three days?
DW: ,,The total costs were around 136.000 euros and there were 150-200 spectators per day. We have 150 seats in the billiard room, but there’s place for more people to watch the games.’’
FB/Kozoom: There is a wonderful charity during the tournament like last year.
DW: ,,Yes, we are very proud to be involved in the action, to support people with multiple sclerosis (MS) by Merk Serono, a Division of Merck, Switzerland, Sport for MS. For every point scored, Merck Serono will pay five Swiss francs to the Romandy Center of the Swiss MS Society. The amount raised by this action will be used to promote physical activity among multiple sclerosis sufferers.’’
The 1190 points played last year, resulted in a contribution of Swiss francs 5.950.
FB/Kozoom: Kozoom wishes you the best of luck in the preparation.
DW: ,,Thank you. It’s extremely important for us to promote the game of billiards in general. And that we involve people with billiards that are not yet familiar with our sport. So, any promotion is welcome.’’